Signed & Inscribed from Sumner & Stillman

1920. [inscribed by Conrad] Garden City NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1920. Original dark blue-green limp leather. First Edition, third impression. The first impression is gathered in 8s and bound in the usual navy blue cloth decorated in gilt; the second is gathered in 16s but is otherwise the same; this third and last 1920 printing (and the… Read more about this item

1872. Elmira [NY], Apl. 19 [1872]." One side of a sheet of lined paper, with "Saml. Clemens | Elmira | April 19/72" written (by the recipient?) on the verso. The text of this early letter reads: What is your _new_ number? I only know 149 Asylum. Wm. C. Smythe (whose letter I enclose) [not included] is a splendid… Read more about this item

1918. [inscribed by Stephen Vincent Benét] New York: The Macmillan Company, 1918. 6 pp undated ads. Original red cloth. First American Edition of this novel published a few months before the Armistice. It was an unpleasant book, turgid, didactic and cantankerous: one critic called it a "hymn of hate." It covered the years from 1893 to 1918, and… Read more about this item

1882. Five pages, to "Dear Uncle William". Salisbury England, 26 June 1882. In this lengthy letter, the American author reports on her improving health (rheumatism), writes of visiting Portsmouth Harbour and Stonehenge (on her trip with Annie Adams Fields), and asks about their mutual relatives back home in South Berwick, Maine. ... I came up from the Isle… Read more about this item

1897. Gulich, J.. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897. Original terra-cotta cloth stamped in black and gilt. First American Edition (which according to Blanck was probably published simultaneously with the London one). This is a tale of intrigue and treachery involving gold miners working an old claim: almost twenty years after Harte left America (and… Read more about this item

1878. [at a turning point of his life] Crefeld [Germany], July 22 / [18]78. Initialed "B.H." Both sides of a single leaf. This is a letter from Harte to his Boston publisher James R. Osgood, at a major turning point in Harte's life. Harte is telling Osgood that he has just (four days earlier) arrived in the major… Read more about this item

1890. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1890. Original royal blue cloth decorated in black, page edges stained orange. First American Edition, published about two months after the edition in London (where Harte was then living). This copy is from the first printing, with (across from the title page) this title priced at $1.25 -- which… Read more about this item

1915. [with letter from Theodore Dreise] New York: George H. Doran Company, n.d. [1915]. Original green cloth. First Edition, published one day earlier than Heinemann's edition in London. This was Maugham's famed autobiographical novel about Philip Carey, who has a club foot and who attends King's School, Tercanbury [Maugham had a stammer and attended King's School, Canterbury]; who… Read more about this item

1880. Received from her brother Isaac (surviving Trustee). Single half-leaf, scant 5" x 8". N.p., June 1880. The signature on this receipt -- Mary Ann Cross -- tells us that this was from the incredible final half-year of George Eliot's life. The text of the receipt is written in black ink in a lawyer's (or her brother's) hand:… Read more about this item

1898. On the calling card of "A. Coyle | Vienna". About 3 inches by 1-3/4 inches with curved corners. Presumably Vienna, 1897-1899. This is simply Mark Twain's autograph signature, in pencil, on the reverse side of the calling card of "A. Coyle | Vienna". The city effectively dates the signature, at 1897-1899: Twain, his wife Olivia, and their… Read more about this item

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934. Original black cloth lettered in gilt, with dust jacket. First Edition of this book-length ballad for which (per the preliminary "Acknowledgement") "The author's thanks and acknowledgements are gratefully tendered to John Steinbeck, author of "Cup of Gold," for his generous permission to use certain incidents from that novel." Berton goes on to… Read more about this item

1879. Crane, Walter. [inscribed by Stevenson's mother] London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879. 1 page preliminary undated ads. Original green-blue cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, beveled. First Edition, first printing, which consisted of only 750 copies. This was Stevenson's third book, following AN INLAND VOYAGE and EDINBURGH PICTURESQUE NOTES; like the former two, this is something of… Read more about this item

1891. Two pages (1st and 3rd page of one folded leaf). Undated, but in the original envelope addressed by Stevenson "Captain Reid | U.S.S. Iroquois | Apia Roads", with RLS's wax seal on the back; in another hand is "Vailima" on the front, and on the rear "Rec'd Friday Oct 31st 1891 -- 4.30 pm Samoan Time". The… Read more about this item

1937. To "Dear Mr. Seale," one page on "5 Portland Place, W.1." stationery. No legible date, but 1937-1938. This is Maugham's response to a Mr. Seale who had apparently asked about a good introductory book on philosophy. The text of this letter is: Cyril Joad brought out with Gollancz last year or the year before a book called,… Read more about this item

1889. [inscribed by Lewis Carroll] With Forty-six Illustrations [each] by Harry Furniss. [Together, two volumes.] London: Macmillan and Co., 1889/1893. 3 pp / 5 pp undated ads. Original red cloth pictorially decorated in gilt, all page edges gilt. First Editions of Carroll's rather serious fairy tales. SYLVIE AND BRUNO, with its conclusion in 1893, was the last considerable… Read more about this item

1805. [inscribed by Scott] The Second Edition. London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and A. Constable and Co., Edinburgh, by James Ballantyne, Edinburgh, 1805. Original blue paper-covered boards, with later (but period-style) white cloth or vellum, with printed spine label. "The Second Edition," which consisted of 1500 copies, issued later in the same year as the… Read more about this item

1856. One page on light blue paper, with the handwritten heading "Consulate USA | Liverpool 2 Jany 1856". The text of this letter reads: I wrote to you on the 30 ult[im]o City of Washington that the Certificate of Registry of the SS Ericsson had been left behind. I now herewith enclose it to you [not present] trusting… Read more about this item

1899. Two pages (first and third pages of one folded leaf of stationery printed with the address "20, Carlton House Terrace, S.W." Dated by hand "5th May '99". The text of this letter reads as follows: Herewith I send you a programme of tonight's affair. You will witness that your name is on the list, but the programme… Read more about this item

1901. Text on one side of a post card imprinted with the address "10, Adelphi Terrace, W.C." Dated by hand "11th January 1901". Address on other side also written by Shaw (The Anglo-Saxon Review | 35 Great Cumberland Place W., altered by someone else to 127, Cambridge St. | Warwick Sq. S.W.) The text of this card reads… Read more about this item

Both on the stationery of the Lend a Hand Society (Rev. Edward E. Hale, President) of Boston. One is four pages (two leaves), dated July 9, 1907, with Boston lined out and replaced by "Matunuck, R. Island". The other is two pages (one leaf), dated July 2, 1908, also with "Matunuck" written in. These letters are from Edward… Read more about this item